There’s a certain kind of Republican who rationalizes Trump’s many vices because, well, Trump has nominated some conservative judges. (Hugh Hewitt, who’ll rationalize anything to keep a job on the Salem talk radio network comes to mind. See It’s the Supreme Court, stupid.) If there’s an equivalent of this, it’s a certain kind of Democrat…

For many years, I would begin the year with predictions for the twelve months ahead. Events since 2016 have made predictions harder, but one can still discern some short-term developments for the city. These prospects, of course, form an online of topics to ponder, and about which to write (often requiring that one return to the…

The UW System, in a press release, announced today that Cheryl Green of UW-Oshkosh has been named interim chancellor at UW-Whitewater: MADISON, Wis. – University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross announced today that Cheryl Green has agreed to serve as UW-Whitewater’s interim Chancellor. Green, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at UW-Oshkosh, will step into…

I’ve added a few additional questions to a post, Questions Concerning a Ban on the UW-Whitewater Chancellor’s Husband After a Sexual Harassment Investigation, first published here on 9.17.18. These questions are surely not comprehensive, and they are process & policy-oriented, so they implicate mainly the institutional response to individual injuries. As policy, however, the university or…

Yesterday, UW-Whitewater Chancellor Beverly Kopper announced that she was resigning her position as of 12.31.18. Later in the day, the UW System publicly announced that Kopper would be on leave at her former salary for eight months, and then in the fall have the option of returning to UW-Whitewater’s Psychology Department as a professor. See…

One reads that Beverly Kopper, UW-Whitewater chancellor, has resigned her position effective 12.31.18. Her resignation was generally expected for at least the last few weeks, and was, more importantly, necessary. This was a public matter involving a spouse appointed to a public position accused of sexual harassment by at least five women while the appointing chancellor kept…

0 Number of published words from Chancellor Beverly Kopper in support of five complainants alleging sexual assault or harassment from her publicly appointed assistant-to-the-chancellor spouse. 448 Number of published words from Chancellor Beverly Kopper in reply to one remark from a single sportscaster during a single Packers preseason game. (It’s not that one shouldn’t reply…

Retired UW-Whitewater professor Brian Kevin Beck contends that Kopper shouldn’t leave [the] Chancellor post. (Candidly, there’s a chance that his defense is so bad that it’s an intentional parody of a defense. It’s hard to believe anyone who served on a worthy faculty could reason so poorly.) Beck argues that (1) misconduct involving Kopper’s public…

Whitewater has a same-ten-people problem, derived from a few people living behind (metaphorically) a narrow and high perimeter fence, with those few often producing mediocre work, while the city’s economy stagnates. And yet, and yet – one reads that even during the third investigation for sexual harassment & assault concerning the relative she appointed, supervised,…

Old Whitewater – a state of mind rather than a person or a person’s age – seldom speaks except to reveal its deficient reasoning (and to reveal, in fact, that it doesn’t even know what good reasoning might look like). Before going further, a reminder: FREE WHITEWATER is the work of one person, writing without…

Imagine a world where public officials appointed spouses to high-visibility positions in the very same workplace, over which they had supervisory authority, but then disclaimed any responsibility over those appointees when they committed acts of assault and harassment (“that wasn’t me, that was my spouse, brother, sister, or cousin,” etc.). They’ll rely on their own…

After – and only after – the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel broke the story of repeated sexual harassment claims against Pete Hill – appointed to a public role as ‘associate of the chancellor’ (and chancellor Beverly Kopper’s husband) – did Kopper herself make a public statement of the matter. Kopper’s statement is notable for its utter lack…

In a story from the Chronicle for Higher Education, a fifth woman, Hailey Miller, reveals her own experience with harassment from Pete Hill, who held the position of associate to the chancellor (while also UW-Whitewater Chancellor Beverly Kopper’s husband). Miller’s account to the Chronicle, backed by contemporaneous notes she shared with that publication, is similar in…